Phase Behavior and Thermo-Mechanical Properties of IF-WS2 Reinforced PP–PET Blend-Based Nanocomposites
Ding Chen, Santosh K. Tiwari, Zhiyuan Ma, Jiahao Wen, Song Liu, Jiewei Li, Wei Feng, Kunyapat Thummavichai, Zhuxian Yang, Yanqiu Zhu, Nannan Wang
Abstract
The industrial advancement of high-performance technologies directly depends on the thermo-mechanical properties of materials. Here we give an account of a facile approach for the bulk production of a polyethylene terephthalate (PET)/polypropylene (PP)-based nanocomposite blend with Inorganic Fullerene Tungsten Sulfide (IF-WS2) nanofiller using a single extruder. Nanofiller IF-WS2 was produced by the rotary chemical vapor deposition (RCVD) method. Subsequently, IF-WS2 nanoparticles were dispersed in PET and PP in different loadings to access impact and their dispersion behavior in polymer matrices. As-prepared blend nanocomposites were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), dynamic differential scanning (DSC), dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA), and X-ray diffraction (XRD). In this work, the tensile strength of the PP/PET matrix with 1% IF-WS2 increased by 31.8%, and the thermal stability of the sample PP/PET matrix with 2% increased by 18 °C. There was an extraordinary decrease in weight loss at elevated temperature for the nanocomposites in TGA analysis, which confirms the role of IF-WS2 on thermal stability versus plain nanocomposites. In addition, this method can also be used for the large-scale production of such materials used in high-temperature environments.